Purebred cats raised by the dozens in converted pig nursery

Nancy McClure is operating a cathouse on her family’s rural Kirkwood farm that attracts customers from all over the country.

Jane Carlson

Nancy McClure is operating a cathouse on her family’s rural Kirkwood farm that attracts customers from all over the country.

But her kind of cathouse doesn’t raise her neighbors’ eyebrows.

It’s a long, narrow white building tucked between cornfields and hog confinement sheds that’s filled with dozens of purebred cats.

Louie, a stern-looking Persian, keeps watch over visitors from his perch on a window ledge. Inside, fluffy Ragdoll kittens bat around their toys and climb scratching posts while a giant but gentle Maine Coon named Red naps in the glow of a stream of sunlight pouring into his room.

When McClure and her husband, Merlin, decided three and a half years ago to convert a pig nursery into a licensed cattery, their friends couldn’t resist a few bad “cathouse” jokes.

“They asked if we were going to put a red light on the building,” McClure said.

McClure’s days involve cleaning up hairballs, emptying around 20 litter pans, cleaning out the rooms and administering medications, all with the help of her assistant Dawn Gibbs.

It is, McClure admits, a unique profession, but one she finds easier and more enjoyable than helping her husband tend to hogs, particularly after dealing with a back injury in recent years.

“I’ve always liked cats,” McClure said. “It’s just really a lot of fun. It’s fun to be around and watch them play.”

Demand for purebred cats extends beyond area

On any given afternoon inside the cattery, entire litters of kittens are napping on top of each other and adult cats are stretched out and snoozing on the floor.

But with up to 50 cats and kittens at any time, it’s still a hotbed of activity. Toys and bells jingle as the animals let out a chorus of meows, purrs, hisses and snarls.

The size of McClure’s operation sets her apart from others who raise purebred cats.

“Some people just do it out of their homes,” McClure said.

She sells around 100 kittens per year, starting at $400, and estimates about 75 percent of her business comes from western and central Illinois, with the remainder from Chicago, southern Illinois and other states. She recently shipped a Maine Coon to Hollywood, Calif., and also has sold cats to customers from Indiana to Seattle.

In addition to Persians, known for their thick coats and large eyes, and Maine Coons, large cats known for their intelligence and playful demeanor, McClure raises and sells Ragamuffins, one of the newest breeds of domestic cat, and Ragdolls, so named because they are limp and relaxed when held.

McClure fields orders by e-mail, phone and in person, often having owners lined up for the cats long before they’re old enough to go home.

The operation isn’t big enough, however, for McClure not to get attached to each individual kitten.

“Sometimes it’s hard to let them go,” McClure said.

Catteries, breeders get a bad reputation

A lot of people have the wrong idea about what McClure does for a living, she said.

When she tells them she raises cats, they picture a hot, smelly facility with unhealthy, unhappy cats trapped in cages.

But that, McClure said, is far from the truth.

Her cattery is well-ventilated and air-conditioned and the cats live in 10-by-10-foot rooms equipped with toys, windows, ledges, food and water.

“They have room to run and play,” McClure said. “The only time they are in cages is when they are giving birth.”

She lets the cats out individually to run and play in the long aisle that separates the two rows of rooms that once housed baby pigs and consisted of wire floors and wire gates.

When the facility was converted, the McClures built new walls, new floors and added ledges, scratching posts and other built-ins to the rooms. The facility is cleaned daily and subject to random inspection.

People also sometimes picture the owners of a cattery as people who don’t care about the animals, but McClure said that’s simply not true.

Her priorities are raising healthy cats and finding them good homes, she said. She is a USDA licensed Class A breeder and the cattery is licensed by the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

She takes pride in operating a clean facility and working closely with her veterinarian to vaccinate the cats and detect any medical problems as soon as possible.

But when all the work is done for the day, McClure sometimes doesn’t want to go home.

“It’s just fun. I can be over here for hours just watching them play,” McClure said.